No. This is not a post about the theme song from Frozen, although now we’re all singing it.

I’m sorry.

This is actually a post about those skunky German Shepherds from the other day. Remember them? Well, they stayed with us through yesterday, when, much to everyone’s dismay, the owners called Maddie. She’d left her number with the area shelters in the event that the owners called, and they finally did, with a perfect description of the dogs.

We had invested time, money, elbow grease (it’s HARD to get skunk off a dog), and, in the process, love. We were all crazy about them, and after we discovered they weren’t chipped, had decided to follow the shelter’s lead of a three-day wait period before adopting them out, or, in our case, chipping and keeping them ourselves.

Yesterday was the third day.

We watched as the family was happily reunited with “Night” and “Star,” and teared up when both beautiful animals came back to us for a head rub before bounding into the cab of their family’s pickup. It was difficult to let them go.

But we had to. They weren’t ours to keep.

Sometimes we are called to do something for a season, and during that season we pour ourselves, heart and soul, into this thing, coming to love it in a very special way. But we know, deep down inside, that the season will eventually come to an end and we will have to step away. Stepping away hurts, and I think it often keeps us from ever answering the call to become involved in the first place. After all, who needs any extra pain?

But then there’s this: What about the thrill of helping, doing your part and being the force that brings benefit to another life?

When we choose not to risk the pain, we also make a choice to forfeit the blessing.

We kept a little girl’s two furry friends safe until she could be reunited with them. We sent them home in better shape than we found them, and we accepted the very grateful thanks from a visibly relieved family. In the heartbreak of watching that truck pull out, we basked in the knowledge that we’d done a good and right thing, and we are the better for it.

You can be, too, if you risk your heart with a thing, only to let it go.

And, while you’re singing the song all day long, maybe it’ll help you remember that.

“A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 MSG